The sunlight turned harsh!

“Y’know Marina uses brellas, are you saying Marina sucks?”

In the darkness dangles a red light, illuminating a face blanketed by shadows. Without her mask, her snaggle-tooth smile is clear, and a waved hand precedes her call out. “ Hey! Sigal! Here I am! ”

Her hair is wispy, with lengthy fins making up the most of it. Large round eyes — the darkness meant she’d need them to see efficiently — rest beneath the dangling orb emitting the luminescence. Down her legs and arms are stream-lined bio-luminescent freckles that also brighten her physique, visible now that she removed her bulky coat and lengthy leggings.

“ I hope I’m not, um, creeping you out or anything. I covered up a lot in turf ‘cause I didn’t… well, not a lot of us go to the surface. It’s really hard, y’know? Not used to the whole… sunlight thing. It’s not a long walk, though! Just gotta take you to the pressure chamber, so you don’t, like… burst. The deeper you go, the more… different. I hope that’s okay! ”

“Heya!”

The moment she saw Lucy, Sigal felt a wave of relief and security wash over her. After all, here was someone who knew this place well, and could probably keep out of trouble. And not any old someone, but someone who was quickly becoming a new friend too. Returning the wave, she stowed her phone in her pocket, and settled into a much more relaxed demeanor. 

   LUCIEN ☆ : oh you’re not native? you can tell me bout your home when you get here!!    LUCIEN ☆ : i live in Cressaria Trench!    LUCIEN ☆ : it’s a branch off C11; curved path! lil sign direction points 2 it ^ - ^    LUCIEN ☆ : weeps… ur rly sweet… i’d love to!! i’ll wait for you here!!    LUCIEN ☆ : cressaria’s pretty big and dark, but most of us have things for that! dw!    LUCIEN ☆ : there’s this super cool path that’s lined with glowing rocks so no one gets lost !!! see you soon !!

Sigal had reopened the message, checking yet again that she had indeed gotten off at the right stop. The station was lit up just enough that she could make out the small sign indicating the path down to the trench. 

She hesitated for a moment, before making her way down the path to Cressaria Trench. Although Lucy had said it was safe, she couldn’t help but cling to her brella a little tighter than usual. The path eventually to a wider area, and Sigal stopped just for a moment to reopen the text messanger, just barely getting enough signal.

    LUCIEN ☆ : thank uuu aaaa!!      LUCIEN ☆ : oh !! well some weird stuff happened a while back yeah     LUCIEN ☆ : but the train was safe! the metro is just  ahub!     LUCIEN ☆ : inhabitants are all rly chill and laid bakc. there’s less fighting than up here lol like, significantly less! i use synthetic ink, yknow? i’m not an inkling or octoling, but i wanted to play!            LUCIEN ☆ : to… be quite honesti get picked on a lot on the surface. that’s kknda why i don’t wanna practice up there. i feel like i’m gonna get teased again.     LUCIEN ☆ : i know no one means any harm! but it feels… isolating to be like, looked at ‘cause i’m different. not like, the whole reaction to octolings an d stuff. where they were like ‘oh you’re just an inkling with weird tentacles!’ i was wearin a mask cause i didn’t want anyone 2 know…

     LUCIEN ☆ : (=^ ◡ ^=) my name’s lucien! lucy for short.      LUCIEN ☆ : and tbhhhh. it’s a mindgame with THEM too, it’s so annoying      LUCIEN ☆ : aaa thank u !! tjat means a lot wehhh      LUCIEN ☆ : i actually live kinda far ish? i ride the deepsea metro home. but there’s this gr8 open area near my stop if you wanna try that out?

      UNKNOWN NUMBER: aaaa you caught me redhanded       UNKNOWN NUMBER: moray is the WORST i hae it sfm       UNKNOWN NUMBER: ok like.. tjhis is super kinda sslef absorbed but i was wondering if we could like… rematch? if ur not busy? i fieel like i just gotta get used to brella mirrors, cause its like… a mind game.

@splatbrolly performed well.

It’s a quick flicker, the change of their present screen to the conversational messenger, but that could easily be mistaken for an accidental thumb swipe.

      UNKNOWN NUMBER: Hey !!! Is this Sigal? ヾ(・ω・)メ(・ω・)ノ       UNKNOWN NUMBER: I was playing w u in turf !!       UNKNOWN NUMBER: sorry if this is like super sudden but i wanted to ask for some pointers??

She blinked. She had meant to go to Inkstagram, but must have miscliked, instead staring at these new messages.